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Gov. Greg Abbott signed Texas’ new congressional map into law Friday, celebrating in a social media video that the state is “now more red in the United States Congress.”
Abbott’s signature concludes the legislative portion of this unusual mid-decade redistricting effort, which started earlier this summer when President Donald Trump began pushing state lawmakers to redraw Texas’ map to shore up the narrow GOP majority in the U.S. House ahead of the 2026 midterms.
The battle now will go to the courts, where groups representing Black and Latino voters have already filed lawsuits asking that the maps be blocked from going into effect. A three-judge panel that is already considering challenges to Texas’ 2021 maps has set a hearing for early October. The filing deadline for the 2026 midterms is in December.
Despite initial resistance from Abbott and Texas’ congressional delegation, the governor did eventually add it to the agenda for the first special session. After Republicans revealed a map designed to create five new GOP districts, setting up a 30-8 split in Texas’ congressional delegation, Democrats in the state House left for Illinois and other states to deny the chamber the headcount needed to pass legislation.
After California Gov. Gavin Newsom kicked off his state’s retaliatory redistricting effort, the Democratic lawmakers returned, and the new map passed both chambers on party-line votes.
In the social media video, Abbott said the new map “ensures fairer representation in the United States Congress for Texans.” Texas Democratic Party chair Kendall Scudder said Abbott had “surrendered to Washington, D.C.”
“They love to boast about how ‘Texas Tough’ they are, but when Donald Trump made one call, they bent over backwards to prioritize his politics over Texans,” Scudder said. “Honestly, it’s pathetic.”
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